Good morning! Columbia gives in to Trump’s demands to recover federal funding, women’s college basketball could still be undervalued, and Fortune reporter Beth Greenfield examines what happens when women are the breadwinners.
– Money problems. Women earn just 84 cents to every dollar earned by a man. And yet, despite that disadvantage, the share of married women who were earning at least as much as their husbands had more than tripled by 2023 over five decades, found Pew Research.
Seems like good news, right?
More like a mixed blessing, according to new data compiled by Divorce.com, as I reported recently in Fortune. It showed straight married couples with a female main breadwinner to be associated with a divorce rate that is almost three times higher (31 per 1,000 vs. 11 per 1,000) than in marriages with a man who earns more.
The overall divorce rate is even worse in single-income families in which women bring home the bacon, and the rate in those cases is well over twice as high as in male-earner families (54 per 1,000 vs. 20 per 1,000).
While female breadwinners represent just 16% of all households, they account for 42% of divorces, “highlighting a significant imbalance,” noted the data report, based on responses to the Census’s American Community Survey from between 2012 and 2023.
So what gives? Is this happening because men can’t handle being out-earned? That depends who you ask.
University of Chicago professor of economics Marianne Bertrand wrote about the topic more than a decade ago, when similar data showed female earners accounting for 41% of divorcing households while only making up 17% of all U.S. households. She saw the divorce-rate gap as a grim, sexist reality, believing that a woman out-earning her husband was found to cause unhappiness in a relationship and even “doom” the marriage.
Divorce.com CEO and founder Liz Pharo, on the other hand, told me she believes that such a divorce gap could be evidence of empowerment. “Women are no longer financially dependent on their partners,” she said, “which means they’re more willing to leave unsatisfied marriages instead of staying out of necessity.”
Read the full story here.
Beth Greenfield
beth.greenfield@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Columbia concedes. Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands and will make changes to its security presence, policies on protests, and Middle Eastern studies department. The administration had pulled $400 million in federal funding, accusing Columbia of failing to fight antisemitism on campus. U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that the university, led by interim president Katrina Armstrong, is “on the right track” to getting its funding back. New York Times
- Equal opportunity. JPMorgan Chase is consolidating some of its DEI programming and changing the language used to describe it—DEI will now be DOI, or Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion. "The ‘e’ always meant equal opportunity to us, not equal outcomes,” said COO Jenn Piepszak in a memo. Reuters
- Undervalued? The NCAA’s overall media rights deal valued women’s college basketball at $30 million. But with March Madness underway, some experts estimate that the sport’s true value is closer to $100 million. Front Office Sports
- Abortion arrest. The first criminal charges since the overturn of Roe v. Wade were made against an abortion provider in Texas for allegedly performing abortions in the state with near-total bans. Maria Margarita Rojas and her employee could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The health clinics where Rojas was employed did not comment, and she did not respond to comment requests. NBC
- Another test. 23andMe’s board rejected CEO and founder Anne Wojcicki’s takeover bids and has filed for bankruptcy. Wojcicki resigned as CEO so that she will be eligible to bid for the genetic testing company out of bankruptcy, again. Wall Street Journal
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Lightship, a clinical trial services provider, named Darcy Forman COO. Most recently, she was founder and president of Centricity Clinical.
Valo Health, an AI-driven biotech, named Peggy Dalicandro VP, head of human resources. She was previously VP, head of HR for origination at Flagship Pioneering.
Allianz Commercial, an insurance provider, appointed Lara Martiner as global head of alternative risk transfer at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty. Martiner will stay in her current role as CEO of Allianz Risk Transfer.
Nesto, a mortgage lender, appointed Susan Kudzman to its board of directors. Previously, she was EVP, chief risk officer and corporate affairs at Banque Laurentienne.
Arcellx, a cell therapy biotech, appointed Kristin Myers to its board of directors. She is COO at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
ON MY RADAR
How to follow up a blockbuster debut novel The Cut
At a ‘crisis moment,’ women’s college basketball officiating needs a way forward The Athletic
A mother’s quest to secure Biggie Smalls’s legacy Wall Street Journal
PARTING WORDS
“I was a believer that, regardless of what the job description says, if I felt like I could do it, I would go for it anyway.”
— LaFawn Davis, chief people and sustainability officer at Indeed, on not having a bachelor’s degree and not letting that get in the way of her career
